Killing 8 Weekends With 1 Post

I shant try to catch up too detailedly on each of these, but feel free to comment any questions!

  18/Oct: Avila

I went by my self, as my first "test run" for this winter's upcoming European tour. It was raining, (but I saw it without the rain with ISA on the way to Salamanca) It was really neat. I visited the Murallas (walls around the city), the Cathedral, The convent that St. Teresa lived in, with museum, and a cathedral that was built in 4 different architectural styles over centuries.

  25/Oct: Valsain & Segovia

This was an ISA-organized day trip. We went to Valsain, where we went for a hike through some beautiful landscape. It was real

ly nice to spend some time outside of the big city setting.

Then we went to Segovia, which has a famous aquaduct. This part was pretty lamely organized, as the only thing we did there was have a lunch break, but overall, I didn't think the day was a dud like some people kept complaining.

  31/Oct-2/Nov: Zaragoza

I went to Zaragosa with Pomme, my Thai friend from school. She has some friends (from Thailand) who attend the Academia Miltar (there's some sort of international agreement). We went to the Jura de Bandera, where the Spanish military students make their formal commitment to the country, which involves kissing the flag.

There was also a lot of Thai language spoken and Thai food eaten.

I started my NaNoWriMo novel out of town, and started off behind word count.

  6-9/Nov: Fatima

This was my second "test run" for January, and this semester's biggest individal trip. It was absolutely amazing. I found Fatima to be a beautiful, peaceful, and holy place. I really got a lot out of it. I visited the aparition sites, the homes of the children, it's all there. I also saw the bllet that shot Pope John Paul II!

And the Portugese more or less understood me, and I more or less understood them. It worked!

I didn't have my computer, but I noveled on paper, and was back caught up by Sunday night.

  14-16/Nov: Salamanca

ISA's first overnight trip. There was a long and amusing story about an Italian restaurant that involved the owner and teh chef picking us up because we were lost, and then there was a lot of free limoncello. Good times! The cathedral there is absolutely gorgeous. (I've got a soft spot for gothic architecture.) We also saw the University (old and famous), and an art-deco museum with an antique doll exhibit. And we stayed in a 4-star hotel, which was lovely.

I was already getting behind on my novel, but this weekend didn't help.

  21-23/Nov: Home!

I was really looking forward to this weekend, as much because I was a whole day behind on my word count, as because I hadn't really rested in about a month. The weather was beautiful and I had a wonderful time. I went to the Jardin Botanico and the Planetario with Pomme, both of which were fun.

Friday, I have no idea how I wrote >5k words, Saturday was 

the write-in. (more here) And I was well on my way to crossing the finish line Tuesday night.

  28-29/Nov: Granada

I misplaced my camera, so I only have photos from facebook, which is OK.

Granada was spiffy. We saw the Alhambra, which really was amazing. I guess I love Arab architecture as much as gothic. We also saw a flamenco show, which was pretty cool. Most of our free time was spent trying to find food in various places. But the arab atmosphere permeating the city is really neat.

I finished the last 500 words of my novel on Friday afternoon, ending at 55k.

  5-8/Dic: Home

The Immaculate Conception is a national holiday in Spain, so we didn't have classes yesterday, making a four day weekend. I didn't have the cash to be spending, so I stayed at home, did some homework, caught up on some TV shows and watched some Christmas movies online, and, most importantly, making eggnog and sgar cookies. I had some issues with the icing, so I think I might just give up on that. We're already eating them plain.

There! That's the important stuff over about two months. Maybe I'll post about school after the fact, but until then, I will most likely not blog about much important.

Less than two weeks until I meet up with my family in Rome!

Que Dios os bendiga,

-Ganchi ♥

*interesting* trend: What's up with the asterisks?

I've noticed a growing trend recently online. People are using some different punctuation in places like twitter. Namely, _underscores_ and *asterisks*

I'm not sure where it came from originally, but I do know that gmail chat has used these for some time to mean _italics_ and *bold*. The chat box converts them automatically.

But now they're being used without any conversion, and I have to wonder...

Am I the only one who thinks that it looks a whole lot more like *wink, wink* than *emphasis*?

And this really destroys the intended message.

Checks and Balances

Yesterday was the 30th anniversary of the Spanish constitution. I doubt it will ever cese to amaze me that Spain, though it's got written history and art and whatnot going back two thousand years or so, has a very young constitution. Other European countries are in a similar situation. I know, I know. Franco only died in 1975, and other countries had their political turmoil, wars and so on. That is my point.

Look at the United States of America. Whatever else you can say about our society, we've got a 232-year-old constitution, one that's kept us safe from internal and external threats, political or military upheaval. We must be doing something right. It's that system of checks and balances, for which I am so grateful. "Change" can't just happen in out political system. It takes a ton of time and effort, which keeps things at a healthy medium between modern movements and time-tested traditions.

So happy Thanksgiving! (Being in Europe, I get my calendar mixed up)

-Ganchi

NaNoWriMo final thoughts

It's December.

NaNoWriMo officially ended at midnight last night, but I finished my novel on Friday, and I crossed the 50,000-word mark Tuesday night (Wednesday morning). It ended at 55,197 words.

Today, I printed it all out. With single-spacing, 10 point font, tiny margins, and no page breaks, it worked out to 40 pages. (Formatted like a paperback, it's about 200 pages.) It's amazing what a thrill you get out of a stack of warm paper, knowing that you wrote all 55 thousand of those words, and in only 28 days.

It's really been a life-changing experience, much more so than I had originally thought it would be, maybe even more than for most other participants. Not to belittle their accomplishments. All 21,683 of them are incredible. And the community is one of the abolute best things in the world, especially on twitter.

But I never really liked writing. I've never been bad at it, but I've always kind of looked at English majors and aspiring writers as over-artsy dreamers. Sure, I admired their dreams, but I never understood the allure of writing, so the idea never made sense to me.

This past month, though, has opened my eyes. I have to say this has been the most fun I've had, like, ever. The thrill of creation. And it's even cheaper than crochet and cross-stitch. Especially near the end, when my plot and my characters started to take over every moment of my thoughts. It took on a life of its own for the last 25,000 words or so. It was a real thrill, and something addicting. NaNoWriMo has become a part of me. I don't think I'll ever get over the writing bug.

Yet I just wrote a bunch of sentence fragments.

'K then. I hope some of my dear readers will consider writing their own month-long novel next November. Check it!

Much love,

-Ganchi

Homesickness

Yeah.

I'm finally getting homesick. I guess I had let my guard down. I wasn't expecting it to happen.

And now it's December and I want to be home.

Don't get me wrong. I'm loving every minute of Europe. So don't feel sorry for me.

Just send me letters! :)